The Prey by Tom Isbell Read Free Book Online Page A

experience is different.”
    Grabbing her tray, the red-haired girl rises and rushes out. She’s followed by another who has identical facial features but is shorter and more fragile-looking. This frailer version of Red Hair hesitates, seems about to say something, then changes her mind. Hope shrugs it off. Another unanswered question.
    Roll call follows breakfast. On the grassy infield, the girls line up by barracks in perfect geometries of rows and columns. Colonel Thorason removes a sheet of paper from a binder and calls out a series of Participants . The girls cringe when their numbers are called. Once the announcement is complete, the Participants are met by the pudgy Dr. Gallingham and marched off.
    Hope has no idea where they’re being taken. It’s all a nightmarish blur.
    She’s assigned to work in the barn; Faith is put on a cleaning crew. Milking cows and shoveling manure reminds Hope of when she used to help her father. Before they were on the run. Back in happier times. The barn is also outside camp, on the other side of the fence, which makes it feel that much closer to freedom.
    When she returns to the barracks at the end of her shift, she is met by the same hostile glares.
    â€œDon’t bring that barn stink in here,” one of the girls says. “Latrine’s in back.”
    Hope grits her teeth. A number of other girls stand atthe metal trough. They grow quiet when Hope enters.
    â€œCan I get in there?” Hope asks, motioning toward the running water.
    She’s so focused on scrubbing the dirt from her nails that when she turns around, she’s surprised to see she’s surrounded by a circle of girls, over ten of them.
    Hope feels a stab of panic. While her instinct is to run, there’s no possible way she’d make it to the door. Instead, she remembers her father’s advice about not showing fear when facing wild beasts. And what wilder beasts are there than the girls of Barracks B?
    Red Hair steps forward.
    â€œWhere’d you come from?”
    â€œOut there,” Hope answers, shaking the water from her hands.
    â€œAll these years?”
    â€œThat’s right.”
    â€œNo one could evade the Brown Shirts that long.”
    Hope shrugs. “We did.”
    Red Hair leans in until their noses are practically touching. Hope doesn’t notice the girl behind her—not until she yanks Hope’s arms back. Hope struggles but it’s no good. The girl who has her arms is one giant slab of muscle.
    â€œYou better not be working for the Brown Shirts,” Red Hair says, sending a fist into Hope’s stomach.
    Hope’s lungs collapse. Red Hair grabs Hope’s chinand hits her hard across the face. Pain explodes from Hope’s jaw and she crumples to the cold cement floor, tasting the metallic tang of blood.
    Through swollen eyes, Hope sees Red Hair bending over her.
    â€œWe were just fine until you came along,” she hisses. “And don’t you forget it.”
    The girls exit, leaving Hope bruised and bleeding on the latrine floor.
    That night at dinner, the other prisoners seem slightly more talkative than before.
    But there are two exceptions.
    The stub of a girl who grabbed Hope’s arms; her bowl cut of black hair frames a permanently grim expression. And the frail sister of Red Hair. She averts her eyes and doesn’t look at Hope once.
    One by one, the girls finish their meager rations and leave the mess hall. When the frail girl walks by, she drops something next to Hope’s plate. A piece of fabric. Hope regards it warily. When she unfolds it, she discovers it’s a head scarf. She fashions it atop her bald head, grateful for the covering.
    Back in the barracks, it’s as though Hope and Faith don’t exist. The prisoners go about their routines without the slightest regard for them.
    Everyone has climbed into their cots when they heara loud rattling sound: Brown Shirts stripping the chains from